According to the Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, “Texas is doing so well relative to other states precisely because it has rejected the economic model that now prevails in Washington. . .all states labor under the same Fed monetary policy and interest rates and federal regulation, but all states have not preformed equally well. Texas stands out for its free market and business-friendly climate.”

The left should take note. Rather than considering additional “stimulus” spending, more regulation and governmental intrusion, the administration and Congressional leaders should cut spending, roll back red tape, and get out of the way of growth, just as it has in Texas.

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I have lived in Texas for the last 29 years and totally agree with the comments of Richard Fisher. When this story broke, the blogs will full of negative comments about Texas. One of the most frequent comments concerned our budget problems. The Texas Legislature meets every other year for about 5 months. The only other time that they meet is when the Governor calls a special session. The legislation is in special session now. The budget is in conference and will be approved shortly. The budget is balanced with no increase in taxes. I believe that we have around 5 billion dollars left in our rainy day fund. Another comment was that we receive more funds from the Federal Government than we pay in. We pay in more to the Federal Government that we get in return. For everyone's information, we are 35th in ranking. In essence, we are providing welfare to 34 other states. People vote with their feet. We are in the process of adding 4 new US Congress Members. It is true that Texas created 37 percent of all jobs since the beginning of the economy recovery. The majority of these jobs are well paying jobs. Texas is successful because the majority of Texans require the Governor and the Legislature to keep the taxes and the level of bureaucracy low. Over the years the Governor and the Legislature have been responsive to Texans. We are proud of our success. It is sad that the Federal Government and the Blue states ignore the basics such as providing jobs instead of massive welfare and providing an environment that encourages business to grow.

By David Weinberger Here’s an amazing statistic: Texas created 37 percent of all jobs since the beginning of the economic recovery, more than any other state. Excluding New York and Pennsylvania, Texas has created nearly as many jobs as all other state…

God Bless the strong states who don't fall for quick and highly speculative fixes at costs on America! God Bless the states that respect freedom of the people they serve and affix necessary tools in place for that freedom to flourish. God Bless the states who respect the abilities of people of human decency to carry out their personal responsibilities to themselves. God Bless the states that have few safety nets as example of strong, free, independent people, where government is NECESSARILY limited!

Texas used to be a solid blue state until the 1960's when the Democrats turned hard left. I know a few older Republican public officials who used to be Democrats and switched as a result. Texas policies aren't hard right; they are simply common sense and consistent with the nature of man. Other states and Uncle Sam would do well to emulate us.

Rick Perry is NO conservative! If Texas has gained jobs it's sure not Perry's doing since he enacted the largest tax on business in the country, the business margins tax.

While Rick Perry is galavanting around the country pretending NOT to run for President, the business of taking care of Texas is being left to a Legislature (in a special session called by the Governor) that's hostile to taxpayers, property rights, and freedom. As he speaks to groups in LA and New York, Texas lawmakers are dipping into the state's Rainy Day Fund to fund schools rather than cut spending to match income.

Texans thought they sent a message to politicians of all political stripes last November — we’re fed-up (no mistake that was the title of Perry's latest book) with out of control taxation, debt, spending, and big government and politicians who proceed on that course do so at their own peril. While Governor Rick Perry tried to convince tea partiers and grassroots conservatives that he took up the mantle of limited government and low taxes by declaring certain pet issues as “emergency items” in the 82nd regular legislative session, there’s plenty of evidence that the Governor and the Legislature’s priorities don’t remotely resemble those of the electorate.

Perry has been persistently selling off Texas to the highest bidder (using public private partnerships or PPPs), which is the MOST expensive (75 cents a mile in tolls, like adding $15 to every gallon of gas you buy kind of expensive), anti-taxpayer method of funding infrastructure.

Apparently, Texas is for sale since the Texas Legislature is drinking Rick Perry's Kool-Aid that will sell-off virtually everything not nailed down (it used to be contained to roads, now it’s spread to ALL types of public infrastructure: ports, public buildings, hospitals, nursing homes, water supply facilities, etc.) using controversial PPPs.

PPPs represent eminent domain for private gain, which is what caused much of the backlash to the Trans Texas Corridor, where PPPs were the financing mechanism that grants these private entities the control of not just the facility, but the right of way/surrounding property where private companies make a killing on concessions. Texans hold private property rights sacred, and PPPs throw gasoline on the Trans Texas Corridor fire that Perry is attempting to convince Texans has been extinguished.

A repeal of the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) finally passed, yet through a bill on the Governor's desk that allows 15 Texas road projects to be sold-off to foreign companies for a half century that give those entities the ability to cash-in and effectively own and control all the hotels, restaurants, and gas stations along those tollways, Perry got his Trans Texas Corridor piece by piece without the radioactive TTC name attached.

Perry’s anti-‘conservative’ record:

– Enacted the largest tax on business in the country: the Business Margins Tax (basically a gross income tax, there were exceptions for big corporations and oil & gas companies, but it meant an increase as high as 400% in a single year for some, and it's shut down many small businesses in Texas)

– Mandated HPV vaccine for all 6th grade girls in Texas

– Responsible for the biggest attack on parental rights in the country taking over 400 children from their parents in the FLDS El Dorado raid without due process based on a crank phone call

– Instituted in-state tuition for illegals (he's for open borders and derided the AZ immigration law)

– Enacted tuition 'deregulation' which caused college tuition to triple and even quadruple

– Doubled state spending (above population and inflation) on his watch

– Put us $31 BILLION into state debt just for roads (before Perry, ZERO debt for roads, Texas is now spending more on road debt than on building new roads)

– Public pensions are $20 billion in the hole

– Weakened property rights and helped codify a Kelo-style taking of Texans' land for private gain in the Texas Constitution (economic development and blight exceptions and the government can still take Texans' land in the name of a litany of ‘public uses’ and hand them over to private companies using public private partnerships)

Wants to charge Texans a toll tax for every mile they drive & to toll roads already paid for, to sell our roads & infrastructure to foreign companies (that has resulted in toll taxes of 75 cents A MILE, like adding $15 to every gallon of gas you buy), and to build the Trans Texas Corridor piece by piece under the radar, without the toxic name attached.

The grassroots hand-delivered an Open Letter on transportation-related issues to Perry (with over 100 grassroots groups as signatories) in the final weeks of the legislative session and never even got a reply, other than passage of everything the grassroots said they did NOT want. So the silence is not only deafening, it speaks volumes about Perry’s view of grassroots Texans, their pocketbooks, and their property rights.

So while Perry galavants all over the country with his limited government, lower taxes rhetoric, he and his party are basically granting government a blank check to trample on property rights and pick winners and losers — who will lose their land to benefit another, not for matters of public necessity. If the government can steal your land, it’s tantamount to stealing your wealth. Who said Republicans aren’t socialists? PPPs are just the sort of wealth redistribution they like — giveaways to their cronies and special interest friends. Steer clear of Rick Perry. He's hazardous to your wallet and your freedom!

Jim, I have tested three times as a Centrist. The truth is I have been waiting for Perry to throw his Stetson into the ring. The only thing I wonder about,is his foreign policy. I have know idea where he stands, H

Terri is right. There is something suspicious in the mighty state of Texas. It became news several weeks ago what a huge budget shortfall they have this year. In per capita terms I calculated that TX has the same new government debt as New Jersey! Yet TX has the oil, no doldrum industry, whereas NJ produces none on its own. TX has supposedly created new jobs, but NJ, struggling to keep its own, is somehow willing to pay for such services as nursing homes, whereas I hear, those industrious cowmen will have to bring grandma to the cowshed. Jersey closed all its auto plants, TX opens a Tundra facility in San Anton. What goes? Mama won't you tell me the truth?

In May, Texas’s unemployment rate, at 8 percent, ranked twenty-fourth in the country, slightly worse than liberal New York’s. What’s more, not all of those vaunted jobs are great jobs: Texas has the highest percentage of minimum-wage workers in the country, and its per-capita income still sits below California’s.

The state is looking at a staggering $27 billion deficit for 2012-2013. Perry managed to paper over Texas’s last budget shortfall by taking $6.4 billion in Obama stimulus money, more than all but two governors. (At the same time, he was suggesting Texas should secede from the union.) Now, without Democrats in Congress to bail him out, Perry and other Republicans in Austin are proposing big cuts to Medicaid and education—this in a state where 26 percent of people are uninsured, the highest percentage in the United States.

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